Special places: India

July 2005

Dust on my shoes

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Peter Pinney’s 1952 book Dust on my shoes is the story of his journey from Greece to Burma. I discovered this book after a little journey of my own. On the continuum from tourist through traveller to adventurer, I class myself as a traveller, and Pinney as an adventurer. This is a travel book in the genre of the ripping yarn. The exotic places provide a reason, a flavour and a setting for the daring and dangerous human interactions.

This website has been built around the text and photos of Pinney’s book. Slabs of Pinney’s text are available as readings with animated illustrations. A modern parallel journey is being revealed through film clips and text. There is a musical journey featuring Kavisha Mazzella and Mick Thomas, and a collection of biographical material about Peter Pinney.

Ladakh

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This portfolio of photographs by Dr Jaroslav Poncar evokes the spectacular landscapes and hard life of Ladakh, on the western edge of the Tibetan plateau. I enjoy the unsaturated colour and sombre monochrome of these pictures.

Moving here

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Billed as the ultimate database of digitised photographs, maps, objects, documents and audio items recording migration experiences of the past 200 years, this website tells the stories of Irish, Indian, Jewish, Carribean and other people who migrated to Britain. Many of the stories are about the places they came from, and the places they came to.

The great hedge of India

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Roy Moxham wrote The great hedge of India about his quest for the 1,500 mile thorn hedge that divided India in the nineteenth century. I had not heard of the hedge before, and I have not seen the book, but Roy’s book-promo web site hints at a ripping yarn. The British used the impenetrable hedge to collect huge taxes on the Indian salt trade. And yes, after an arduous journey Roy did find a small remnant of the hedge — there’s a photo on the web site.